Google has officially launched Gemini 3 Flash, a fast and cost-efficient AI model built on the Gemini 3 foundation released last month. With this move, Google is aiming to directly challenge OpenAI’s momentum, making Gemini 3 Flash the default model across the Gemini app and AI Mode in Google Search.
The new Flash model arrives just six months after Gemini 2.5 Flash and delivers a major leap in performance, bringing it closer to frontier models like Gemini 3 Pro and GPT-5.2—while remaining significantly faster and cheaper to run.
Gemini 3 Flash Benchmark Performance
Google claims substantial gains across reasoning, multimodal understanding, and real-world tasks.
Humanity’s Last Exam (Reasoning & Knowledge)
On Humanity’s Last Exam—a benchmark designed to test deep, cross-domain expertise—Gemini 3 Flash achieved:
- 33.7% (without tool use)
- Gemini 3 Pro: 37.5%
- GPT-5.2: 34.5%
- Gemini 2.5 Flash: 11%
This places Gemini 3 Flash just behind the top frontier models while massively outperforming its predecessor.
MMMU-Pro (Multimodal & Reasoning)
On the MMMU-Pro benchmark, Gemini 3 Flash scored 81.2%, outperforming all competing models, including OpenAI’s latest offerings.
Gemini 3 Flash Becomes the Default Model
Google is rolling out Gemini 3 Flash globally as the default model in the Gemini app, replacing Gemini 2.5 Flash. Users can still manually switch to Gemini 3 Pro for advanced math and coding tasks via the model picker.
According to Google, Gemini 3 Flash offers:
- Better intent understanding
- Stronger multimodal reasoning
- More visual responses, including tables and images
What Users Can Do with Gemini 3 Flash
The new model is designed for real-world, multimodal use cases, such as:
- Uploading short videos (e.g., sports clips) for tips and analysis
- Sketch recognition and guessing what users are drawing
- Audio uploads for summaries, analysis, or quiz generation
- Rapid app prototyping using natural language prompts
Google says the model is especially strong at understanding combined inputs like text, images, audio, and video.
Additionally:
- Gemini 3 Pro is now available to all users in the U.S. via Search
- More U.S. users can access the Nano Banana Pro image model in Search
Enterprise and Developer Availability
Gemini 3 Flash is already being used by major companies, including:
- JetBrains
- Figma
- Cursor
- Harvey
- Latitude
The model is available via:
- Vertex AI
- Gemini Enterprise
- Gemini API (preview)
- Antigravity, Google’s new coding tool launched last month
Coding and Developer Performance
Google highlighted that Gemini 3 Pro scores 78% on the SWE-bench Verified coding benchmark, second only to GPT-5.2.
Gemini 3 Flash, meanwhile, is positioned as a high-speed workhorse model, ideal for:
- Video analysis
- Data extraction
- Visual question answering
- High-volume, repeatable workflows
Pricing: Faster, Still Cost-Efficient
Gemini 3 Flash pricing:
- $0.50 per 1M input tokens
- $3.00 per 1M output tokens
This is slightly higher than Gemini 2.5 Flash, which cost:
- $0.30 per 1M input tokens
- $2.50 per 1M output tokens
However, Google claims:
- Gemini 3 Flash outperforms Gemini 2.5 Pro
- Runs 3× faster
- Uses 30% fewer tokens for thinking tasks on average
This can result in lower overall costs for many real-world workloads.
“We really position Flash as more of your workhorse model… it allows for bulk tasks at a much cheaper price point,” said Tulsee Doshi, Senior Director and Head of Product for Gemini Models.
AI Arms Race Intensifies
Since the launch of Gemini 3, Google says it has been processing over 1 trillion tokens per day via its API.
Earlier this month, reports suggested OpenAI issued an internal “Code Red” after ChatGPT traffic dipped as Google gained consumer traction. OpenAI responded by launching GPT-5.2 and a new image generation model, while also highlighting an 8× increase in ChatGPT message volume since November 2024.
While Google avoided direct comparisons, Doshi acknowledged the growing pace of competition:
“All of these models are continuing to challenge each other and push the frontier… and new benchmarks are encouraging us to go further.”
Bottom Line
With Gemini 3 Flash, Google is betting on speed, scale, and cost efficiency to win the AI race. By making it the default consumer model and aggressively expanding enterprise access, Google is positioning Gemini not just as a research tool—but as the everyday AI engine for search, apps, and workflows.
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